Ukraine's Main players

Ukraine's Main players

Afp, Kiev

Ukraine's new opposition-led parliament must by today approve a new cabinet that can keep the country from falling off the financial cliff while reviving public support for the corruption-stained authorities.Will lawmakers opt for a government led by a technocrat or a charismatic politician? Here is a look at the main political players in Kiev.

Vitali Klitschko
While the former heavyweight boxing world champion's moderate views have occasionally angered more radical demonstrators, Klitschko, 42, could prove a consensus candidate for president at an election scheduled for May once constitutional changes hand more powers to parliament.

Yulia Tymoshenko
Ukraine's divisive "Iron Lady", former prime minister Tymoshenko, 53, has surged back to centre stage after being released from more than two years of imprisonment on Saturday.

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Petro Poroshenko
A billionaire chocolate baron who has openly supported the pro-EU protest movement, Poroshenko, 48, is a political insider with a history of flip-flopping between governments over the past decade. Viewed presently as one of the country's most popular politicians, the lawmaker has previously clashed with Tymoshenko and controls the key pro-opposition Kanal 5 television station.

Oleksandr Turchynov
Elected interim president Sunday after parliament voted to oust Yanukovych, Turchynov, 49, is the right-hand man of Tymoshenko and followed in her slipstream to become for a time chief of the security service and deputy prime minister.

Oleh Tyahnybok
Head of the nationalist Svoboda (Freedom) party, Tyahnybok, 45, has seen his star rise as he has been accepted as one of the main leaders of the protest movement.

Arseniy Yatsenyuk
An intellectual pro-EU former foreign minister, Yatsenyuk, 39, has risen to prominence from an unfancied technocrat to an unlikely firebrand during the three months of mass protests.

The Maidan
Arguably the most important player remains the disparate coalition of demonstrators still camped out on Kiev's Independence Square -- known in Ukraine as the Maidan -- who have paid for change in the country with their own blood.